As if there weren't any more reasons for people to move to McKinney: The North Dallas neighbor has topped WalletHub's list ranking the best real estate markets in 2025. Richardson, Frisco, Denton, and Allen also made the top 10.
The personal finance website examined 300 U.S. cities based on 17 metrics based on each city's overall real estate market, housing affordability, and economic environment.
This is the third year in a row McKinney has been named the top housing market in America. In 2024, Frisco was right behind McKinney with the second best real estate market in the country, but has since dropped into 6th place this year.
According to WalletHub's findings, McKinney had the second-highest rate of new housing built between 2010-2023. This spike in new construction has afforded buyers the opportunity to buy homes that don't need major maintenance or renovation. Plus, the report says that McKinney's building boom isn't slowing down, as the city currently holds the third-highest number of building permits per capita nationwide.
McKinney also topped WalletHub's separate ranking of the best midsize cities for another consecutive year. This list specifically ranked cities with populations between 150,000 and 300,000 residents.
Though WalletHub says McKinney "isn't necessarily the cheapest city to move to," Motley Fool Money begs to differ, ranking the suburb the No. 1 most affordable city with a low cost of living and residents making high salaries.
Zillow's Home Values Index says the average home value in McKinney is $497,766 as of July 2025, which is five percent lower than it was last year.
"The median home price in McKinney is around 365 percent of the median income, which is the 74th-cheapest out of the 300 cities in our study," the report said. "In addition, it ranks among the 40 least expensive cities for maintenance and telephone, and energy costs."
McKinney's affordability has also made it the No. 1 best city for renters to live, and it also reigns as one of the top 10 safest American cities.
"To top things off, McKinney has a good job market to go along with its healthy real estate market," the report said. "It has the 11th-highest job growth rate in the nation, at nearly 21 percent annually."
Other top real estate markets in Dallas-Fort Worth
Richardson made an impressive leap into the top 10 best U.S. real estate markets, ranking No. 5 overall after previously ranking No. 17 last year. After Frisco in 6th place, Denton (No. 9) and Allen (No. 10) rounded out the top 10.
Richardson, Denton, and Allen also respectively claimed the top three spots in WalletHub's small cities ranking of best housing markets. "Small cities" were categorized as those with fewer than 150,000 residents.
Fort Worth also made a substantial improvement over last year's No. 28 rank overall. Cowtown's housing market has now risen as the 17th best in the nation, and it ranks as the 6th best in the large city category.
Dallas' real estate market's performance has plummeted since last year, moving down from No. 59 in 2024 to No. 70 in 2025.
Five other Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs earned spots among the top 100 best real estate markets, but all of them landed lower than their 2024 rankings.
This is how the five remaining DFW cities performed in this year's rankings:
- No. 45 – Plano (down from No. 34 last year)
- No. 49 – Irving (down from No. 31 last year)
- No. 58 – Grand Prairie (down from No. 43 last year)
- No. 92 – Arlington (down from No. 88 last year)
- No. 95 – Garland (down from No. 38 last year)
"This year, the housing market is skewed much more toward sellers, with
mortgage rates continuing to trend upward and home values having risen over
1.4 percent in the last year on average," the report said. "If you aim for long-term growth, equity and profit with your housing purchase, you’ll need to look beyond tangible factors like square footage and style. Those factors certainly drive up property values. From an investor’s standpoint, though, they hold less significance than historical market trends and the economic health of residents."
The top 10 best real estate markets in the U.S. are:
- No. 1 – McKinney, Texas
- No. 2 – Cary, North Carolina
- No. 3 – Irvine, California
- No. 4 – Durham, North Carolina
- No. 5 – Richardson, Texas
- No. 6 – Frisco, Texas
- No. 7 – Gilbert, Arizona
- No. 8 – Nashville, Tennessee
- No. 9 – Denton, Texas
- No. 10 – Allen, Texas
